Just as Detroit Lions' future turns bright, the NFL goes dark

ALLEN PARK -- In one respect, the Detroit Lions caught a break with the news that the NFL Players Association has decertified as a union and the pro football world could go dark for several months.

Because the Lions have all of their top players returning, a solid coaching staff in place and they're continuing with the same schemes, the Lions are in a better situation than most teams to weather the gloomy labor storm. While many teams will be stumbling to get their act together if there's a shortened training camp, the Lions should be able to hit the ground running when football finally returns.

There's the rub -- when football finally returns. There's not a person on the planet who has any idea when that might be. Late May? Early September? 2012?

There has been an assumption that decertification means that the league will return to normal and games will be played while the legal battles are fought in a courtroom. That's not necessarily true.

The reason is because the owners probably aren't going to accept the terms of the decertification. They're going to argue in court that the union can't simply "say'' they're not a union when in actuality, they still are. It's the "looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck" approach.

If the owners lose that argument, they're going to appeal to a higher court. If they lose that, they'll appeal again. Oh, and if the union loses at some point along the way, then the union will appeal.

Once that issue finally is resolved, then there's the looming antitrust case the players (as individuals, not a union) will file against the league. There's no telling when that might end either.

Because of the nature of the legal wrangling, this is going to be, for all intents and purposes, a winner-take-all situation. While there could be a settlement before a final, ultimate conclusion, the only reason for a settlement is because one side knows they're getting pounded and going to lose big. So whatever settlement there is, it won't be a meeting in the middle, it's going to be to mitigate damages (recognize the legal lingo already? Get used to it).

In the end, I don't think either side really wanted to work out a deal. Each side paid a lot of lip service to honest negotiation, but they only did it to win the public relations battle. To that point, both sides came up big losers in the court of public opinion because football fans don't care who's at fault.

It's hard to get middle America fired up about boardroom battles between billionaires and millionaires. They just want football back, and anything that stands in the way of that is pointless to them.

While many fans might be upset with the union for taking this to court, the reality is they didn't have much choice. If the union didn't decertify and simply continued negotiations, they would not be eligible to decertify for another six months. In that time, the heavily financed owners could squeeze the players financially and force them to cave in to their demands because they eventually would miss game checks in September.

Remember, football players are only paid their salaries during the 17-week period of the regular season.

Then again, some football fans might think the players should have leveraged for the best deal they could get and then accepted it -- very few workers get everything they want out of the boss.

Regardless, the pro football world has gone dark. And isn't that just the Lions' luck? When they're finally gaining momentum and about to turn the corner, somebody throws up a road block.